• Music

    Thierry Zaboitzeff – Le Passage

    March 10, 2024 - By 

    Thierry Zaboitzeff was for many years a member of the seminal avant-progressive/RIO group Art Zoyd, and since 1997, he has been involved in numerous solo projects and collaborations.  This is one of the bleakest records I’ve heard in recent memory, and the liner notes on the Bandcamp site sum up the mood perfectly: “Our world is in the midst of turmoil. Human madness forces Earth to defend itself with violent aftershocks, like so many distress signals. Will wisdom finally become the watchword of the times to come, clearing the path to a possible future? This is the undoubtful aim of…

  • Music

    Extremophiles – First Batch

    February 21, 2023 - By 

    Extremophiles are a duo made up of Jeff Gburek on synthesizer, percussion, effects, devices and John Palumbo on electro-acoustic drums, percussion, and more electronics.  I have to say this release blew me away, as it reminded be of a cross between the crunchy post-punk/Rock-In-Opposition vibe of This Heat’s early work and the more Industrial, less dance-oriented sound of Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF).  The music is fresh, but it will bring back a lot of memories for those of us who remember such sounds.

  • Music

    Etron Fou Leloublan – Les Poumons Gonfl​é​s

    January 28, 2023 - By 

    Etron Fou Leloublan are (were?) an avant-guard rock band out of France whose main claim to fame was being one of the early bands who would end up forming the genre Rock In Opposition, a loosely-knit group of bands who opposed the business which refused to recognize their music, according to a Wikipedia article. This album was released some time between 1981 and 1982, had Fred Frith producing it, and it’s as skronky and noisy as one would expect.  For those of you who like a more free-jazz spirit to their prog rock, consider giving this a listen.

  • Music - Qobuz

    Heiner Goebbels – A House of Call, My Imaginary Notebook

    January 19, 2023 - By 

    Your browser does not support iframes.    As a fan of Heiner Goebbels‘ work as far back as the Recommended / RèR Records days, it’s been a joy to hear his music become more full, more dense, and on occasion, more foreboding.  ECM seems to be the perfect home for his works, and the Ensemble Modern do absolute justice to his compositions. High Res Audio posted an interview on their site regarding this latest release, which you can view below:

  • Music

    Ellipsis Quintet – Avoid The Void

    June 5, 2022 - By 

    This is something of a revelation for me!  The music produced by the Ellipsis Quintet, led by trumpeter Vasilis Nalbantis, mixes traditional Balkan, Greek and Levantine melodies inside a framework that would appeal to fans of the avant-progressive and Rock-In-Opposition genres.  Theirs is a prog-world-jazz stew that’s one of the freshest things I’ve heard come out of Austria in a long time (barring electronic music, of course).

  • Music

    Kombinat M – Hybrid Beat

    March 14, 2022 - By 

    Cuneiform Records has a great program where they announce that an album in their back catalogue gets offered at half-price, and as I had been wanting to hear this band (they feature drummer, composer and friend Lukas Ligeti) for a long time, I decided to risk it.  It was well worth it. From the release’s Bandcamp site: “The Austrian five-piece band, Kombinat M, was founded in 1987 by Walter Hollinetz, Andreas Leikauf, and Erwin Redl. The group’s members, all of whom are trained in music or visual arts, share an interest in rock and jazz-based music, classical minimalism, and fine…

  • Music

    Nick Sudnick – Opera of the Fifteenth Hour

    March 10, 2022 - By 

    24 Rush Hours is a series done by Zga composer and multi-instrumentalist Nick Sudnick, and this is #15 of 24.  The two long pieces are a pastiche of art-rock (think Rock-In-Opposition like Art Bears or the composers Alfred ’23’Harth and Heiner Goebbels).  Add an element of Bertolt Brecht-like lyrics for theater and you have a fine series of avant-opera Sudnick keeps producing..

  • Music

    Ángel Ontalva – October Equus Guitar Project Vol. 1

    February 26, 2022 - By 

    Ángel Ontalva is a Spanish guitarist who spends a great deal of time working in Russia whom we’ve featured here in the past, and he surprises us with a release of an album full of Rock-In-Opposition and chamber-rock influences. From his Bandcamp site: “The origin of this album is in the Rock In Opposition Festival 2014. For our participation I wrote new arrangements for some of the group’s compositions that, due to the difficulty of the scores and the lack of time to prepare them properly, were discarded. During these years I have fantasized about the idea of ​​recording these…

  • Music

    Thierry Zaboitzeff – Pagan Dances EP

    October 15, 2021 - By 

    We had the pleasure of reviewing a soundtrack by former Art Zoyd composer Thierry Zaboitzeff in August, and now we’re happy to announce that he has a 20-minute EP now available to peruse. The title track, Pagan Dances, will sound somewhat familiar to Art Zoyd fans, but he has added much better recording.  The spirit of avant-progressive rock, dark and brooding, enriches the track.  There is Zaboitzeff’s trademark cello work all over the piece, and this work would have fit well in a rescoring of The House Of Usher starring Vincent Price.  Creepy, yes, but engaging.  The second track, La…